50 new exoplanets discovered

[hippifried]

... tsk tsk tsk ...
You eggheads are always trying to convince us normals that there's something beyond our 3 senses. What's next? Gonna try & tell everybody that the earth is round again? Everybody knows it's a flat disk, held up by 5 giant elephants, who are standing on the back of an even bigger turtle.
... tsk tsk tsk ...

[Stavros]

You only have 3 senses, Hippifried? Your voyage of self-discovery has yet to begin, I feel...

[traLika]

life like everything else in physics is lazy so its massively unlikely for life to form that isnt based around the same chemistry as ours:

A very persuasive argument from Dr Tyson, muh_muh, but it still might also be possible for lifeforms to exist where there are liquid hydrocarbons instead of liquid water. Like on Saturn's moon Titan, which has a weather system based on methane (which also consists of two of the most abundant elements - carbon and hydrogen) in solid, liquid and gaseous forms.

[hippifried]

I have a photo sense. I have a chemical sense. Then I have a touch sense that allows me to discern heat, viscosity, & motion. Smell & taste are the same sense. Hearing is a touch sense, where you feel the vibrations in the surrounding medium.

[muh_muh]

namely it doesn't interact with anything except through its inertia (i.e. gravitational effects).

considering how little we know about dark matter other than (very) roughly how its distributed i dont think theres any reason why it shouldnt be perfectly viable that dark matter might be as diverse as normal or (considering the numbers involved) abnormal matter and perfectly capable of interacting with itself and existing in a sort of parallel universe within our universe

also i think youve just described a large part of geek culture which is arguably inhabited by people who are alive

other than that assuming dark matter is utterly boring the same logic applies to dark matter and helium

A very persuasive argument from Dr Tyson, muh_muh, but it still might also be possible for lifeforms to exist where there are liquid hydrocarbons instead of liquid water. Like on Saturn's moon Titan, which has a weather system based on methane (which also consists of two of the most abundant elements - carbon and hydrogen) in solid, liquid and gaseous forms.

good point
on the other hand the only chemistry that we have solid proof of being capable of spontaneously producing life based on those elements is ours so its probably not a bad choice to search for those primarily

btw another important aspect in searching for life is searching for planets with atmospheres that have illogically low levels of entropy
eg ours has a fairly large amount of oxygen in it which cannot possibly exist in an atmosphere without constant repruduction through something

[trish]

btw another important aspect in searching for life is searching for planets with atmospheres that have illogically low levels of entropy

Excellent observation. If you aren't already familiar with it, you and the others here may be interested in Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan's book, Into The Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics and Life. I ran across it in a book store a few years ago and was enthralled by it.

[hippifried]

Are there pictures?